by Allan Eckert
The Indians, a mixed group of nine that included Wyandots, Mingoes and Delawares, then went to the sugar camp and very easily took Mrs. Riley captive. Seeing the fresh scalp and the strand of wampum that she recognized as John’s, she knew he was dead and thought they would kill her, too, if she resisted in any way. Not knowing if they could understand her, she nevertheless told them that if they would not kill her, she would go with them peaceably. The warrior who was evidently the leader nodded and said something in his own tongue, upon which he and seven of the warriors moved off carefully toward the cabin, leaving her in the care of the one who had killed John. As soon as they were gone, her captor hurriedly tied her hands together with the wampum belt and then tied the loose ends to the low-slung branch of a beech tree. Then he loped off toward the cabin, too, in order to share in the plunder. In his haste, he had not tied Mrs. Riley well. She quickly freed herself and ran through the woods to the north, heading for the two-mile-distant Carpenter’s Station.722
Things were very bad at the Riley cabin. Abigail and Ruth, outside, had seen the approaching Indians first, and Abbie screamed. Moses, who was hidden from view behind a little screen of brush, instantly leaped down into a ravine and scurried away in the only direction open to him, heading toward Waxler’s Station, some five miles distant to the south.723 The sisters tried to run but were grabbed before taking more than a few steps. Inside the cabin William snatched up a flintlock and started out when four-year-old Tom cried out to him. He came back, told his brother he’d protect him as long as he lived, hoisted the little boy onto his back, ordered him to hang on tight and then plunged outside and started racing away. He had covered no more than 30 yards when a rifle cracked, and he was killed. Tom was thrown from his back, bumped his head and sat up crying. A warrior ran up and tomahawked him and took both scalps and William’s gun.
The warriors ran into the cabin and quickly plundered it of anything they found worthwhile. They discovered the infant Claudia in her cradle.724 The warrior who tied Mrs. Riley to the tree, believing the baby to be hers, took the infant up in his arms and carried it back to where he had tied the woman. Discovering that she was gone, he became very angry, grabbed the baby by one ankle, swung her around his head and then dashed her brains out against the tree to which her grandmother had been tied.
Back at the cabin, the Indians ripped open the feather ticks and scattered the contents all over and set fire to the cabin. Then, obviously fearing pursuit, they started away with their plunder and the two young women. Ruth Schemmerhorn nearly fainted when she recognized her husband’s scalp stuck in the belt of the warrior who had killed him. They had traveled less than a mile when Abigail turned her ankle on a root and fell. When she got back up, she was limping badly, which slowed them considerably. After a little while a few of the Indians led Abigail off into the woods and a few minutes later returned without her. When Ruth asked where her sister was, she was told by the leader, “She has gone to sleep.” Deeply traumatized by all that had occurred in so short a time, Ruth continued with them in an enveloping aura of grief.725
Mrs. Riley had made it safely to Carpenter’s Station, and little Moses Riley had finally gotten to Waxler’s Station. Both reported the attack and the word spread swiftly, causing great alarm.726 Immediately Maj. William McMahan raised a party of 30 men and went to the scene. They gathered up the bodies of John Schemmerhorn and the Riley children, William, Tom and Claudia, and in a melancholy ceremony buried them in a common grave. They camped for the night near the ruins of the burned cabin and in the morning began following the raiding party. The trail led them all the way to the Tuscarawas River, near the mouth of Stillwater Creek, at which point two of McMahan’s scouts, who had been ranging ahead, came in and reported they had found the Indian encampment several miles downstream. The small party they had been following had merged with a much larger war party; too large, in fact, for McMahan’s party to attempt to attack them. Disgruntled at not getting their revenge but thankful at not having run into the larger Indian force that could have wiped them out, the McMahan party returned home safely.
That was when the whole incident began affecting Samuel Brady. One of his scouts, a fiery-tempered Irishman named Francis McGuire, was on hand when the McMahan party returned and was outraged that, as he put it, they had turned tail and run.
“I’m going to get Captain Brady,” he said, “and we’ll get those damn varmints. Ain’t no war party going to come here like that an’ do what they did and then run off ’thout takin’ their licks in return.”
As soon as he could, McGuire went to Brady’s place and found him there with his wife, Drusilla, and their two sons, Van, who was now five, and John, who had been born just last year. Brady had not heard of the attack and was as incensed as McGuire that the McMahan party had not struck the Indians when they had the chance. He sent for many of his scouts and then conferred with the local militia commander, Capt. Baldwin Parsons, who also put out a call for volunteers. Lewis Wetzel, who happened to be in the area of Buffalo Creek, heard about the call to arms and, though he usually preferred to do his Indian hunting on a solitary basis, volunteered to go along. So, too, unknown to his parents, did 16-year-old Solomon Hedges. Others came in from various points and, between Brady and Parsons over the next week or so, they collected a quite respectable body of about 40 men. They all crossed the Ohio at Mingo Bottom and headed up Indian Cross Creek, looking for Indian sign but not too hopeful of finding any since by now so much time had elapsed since the attack on the Rileys. The first day they followed the creek some 17 miles up to its headwaters and camped there.727 During that night it rained very hard, a bitterly cold rain that turned into sleet, then back to rain, thoroughly drenching and chilling the men and dampening the enthusiasm of many of the volunteers as well as Capt. Parsons, who was now having second thoughts about penetrating the Indian country in disobedience of the recent governmental orders forbidding such activity. They held a meeting, and about half the force rather shamefacedly admitted they were for returning home.
“I’ll have their scalps before I go back!” McGuire declared, and more than two dozen of the men sided with him. “Sam,” McGuire continued, “you gonna’ lead us iffen these others go back?”
“I will,” Brady replied grimly.
That settled it. In the cold gray light of dawn, Capt. Parsons assembled the men who were going to return with him and directed them to give their surplus provisions and ammunition to those who were going on. They did so, and then the two groups, wishing each other well, separated.728
Hardly two miles away from their night’s camp, Brady’s party discovered the fresh remains of an Indian camp, at which several articles were found that had been discarded. One of the men in the party studied the goods and identified them as having been taken from the Riley cabin. Instantly they took up the trail and followed it to the west a half-mile, when it turned to the north, the Indians obviously traveling very rapidly. Day after day they continued following the Indians northward and then gradually arcing eastward. After about a week they were nearing Beaver River, only a little over a mile above Fort McIntosh, at its mouth. On March 8 they had come to a small run and were following it in the last light of day toward where it empties into the Beaver when they detected smoke.729 Creeping up the low ridge separating the run from the river, they spied an Indian encampment at the east base of it, on a long narrow bottom only about 100 feet wide, close to the Beaver River shore and almost exactly opposite the blockhouse trading post called Beaver Blockhouse. That post belonged to William Wilson and John Hillman—a rather unsavory pair who, while the allegations had never been proved, were suspected of having harbored Tories and supplying the hostile Indians during the Revolution.730 Suspicions were strong among Brady’s men that the Indians were planning to cross Beaver River the next day and reprovision themselves at the trading post.
Three tents had been set up in the camp of the Indians but, with darkness coming on, Brady’s party had no way of determining
for certain how many warriors were on hand, so they eased back to the west side of the ridge to decide how they would attack, and then strike them at first light on the morrow. They planned to split their party and attack from two directions simultaneously. Lewis Wetzel was to lead one group, taking them over the ridge and down the east slope to attack the camp from the west, while Brady would lead the other, following the run to its mouth, a few hundred yards below, then coming up the Beaver River shoreline to attack from the south. Brady’s own gunfire was to be the signal for the start of the attack. If the Indian party included any women or children, they were not to be killed but captured for possible use later in a trade for the two missing sisters, Ruth Schemmerhorn and Abigail Riley.
At the very first light of day, the two parties moved out. Brady, with McGuire, Tom Wells and others directly behind him, moved quickly down the run and then, keeping to cover, northward along the bank of the Beaver. When they were about 100 yards below the Indian encampment, they heard a peculiar whistling sound. Advancing cautiously, they spied two Indian boys about ten years old up in the branches of a young sugar maple—one about ten feet off the ground, the other five feet higher. They were giggling and blowing on willow-twig whistles. From their elevated perch the sharp-eyed boys saw Brady’s party creeping up and instantly scrambled down to the ground and ran toward the camp, shouting a warning.
Brady’s party followed at a run and, upon glimpsing the Indians, men and women alike, sitting or standing around their campfire, fired and dropped one of the warriors. Immediately a general firing followed, both from Brady’s men and from those with Lewis Wetzel, whose party had also broken into a run downhill toward the camp. John Van Buskirk, running beside Charley Wells, tripped over a root and fell face-first into a large tree, breaking his nose. Another of the Indians killed at the camp took a ball fired by James Campbell. The rest of the Indian party, including some who were wounded, fled to the north, the warriors snatching up their rifles as they left.
Brady, with his second shot, had wounded a warrior in the shoulder. He ran to him, kicked his rifle away and pulled him to his feet. The wound was not severe, and Brady intended to take him in as a captive, perhaps to learn where the girls had been taken and plan a rescue mission.
“This one’s a prisoner,” he yelled. “Leave him alone.”
The warrior, not understanding English but evidently misconstruing Brady’s yell as a command to his men to kill him, shoved Brady hard and sprinted away. Half a dozen shots broke out and he tumbled dead to the ground no more than 50 feet away.
On the slope with Wetzel, Joe Edgington raised his rifle and took a bead on one of the runners.
“That’s a squaw, Joe,” Caleb Wells said.
“I know,” Edgington said as he squeezed the trigger and killed her in midstride. Edgington then looked at Wells and added, “You keep quiet about me bein’ the one who brought ’er down.” He paused a moment and then added, “I’ll tell you, Caleb, I hate these goddamn Injens an’ I will kill anything and everything in the shape of an Injen whenever I get the chance, from the size of my fist to an ol’ gray-head, be they he or she. An’ I don’t think too kindly on them as thinks I’m wrong to do so.”
It wasn’t an outright threat, but Caleb Wells got the message and figured he would probably live a lot longer if he kept his mouth shut.
Wetzel and several others raised their guns toward a particularly muscular warrior running full tilt, a blanket tied about his neck flapping capelike behind him. As other guns were firing around him, Wetzel aimed just below the man’s shoulder and, when he fired, the warrior instantly tumbled. The Indians with him, including the two boys initially discovered, plus an older girl, a woman and an old man, continued running and quickly plunged into a dense willow thicket. As the wounded Indian tried unsuccessfully to get back to his feet, Wetzel ran up. Seated on the ground, the warrior faced him and began begging to be spared. Wetzel grinned maliciously, pulled out his tomahawk and buried it in the side of his head, killing him.
“You damn yaller sumbitch,” he growled, “you make no pleas at me!”
The blanket had several bullet holes in it, but only one ball had struck him, passing through his left upper arm and into his body. Wetzel scalped the warrior, gave the blanket to the others, pulled off the bloodsoaked buckskin blouse and, grinning wickedly, donned it over his own.
As they entered the camp at a run, Jim Hoagland shot at a warrior who scrambled out of one of the tents. His ball creased the side of the warrior’s neck, causing him to stumble and roll over. As he tried to rise, McGuire rushed up and shot him dead at a distance of 20 feet.
As a lull occurred in the firing, Brady shouted loudly, “Don’t follow them into that cover! It’s too thick. Those that’ve been hit will stop and cover the escape of the others. They’ll kill you, and it’s not worth throwing your lives away for.”
Young Solomon Hedges, however, had wounded an Indian, saw him get up and limp away and meant to get his first scalp, if at all possible. He went to the spot where the warrior had fallen and found blood. At once he began following the trail of the telltale droplets. Carefully and watchfully, gun loaded and at ready, he followed the trail upriver for half a mile before it abruptly stopped. A few downy buzzard feathers on the ground told the story: The warrior had plugged up his own wound and evidently gone on. Hedges, very disappointed over the loss of the scalp, started back toward the others. Actually, the warrior, a Delaware, was very close by, and dying. He had indeed plugged his wound with buzzard down, but he had then squeezed into a hollow black oak and, with slowly fading vision, watched the youth return the way he had come.731
William Sherrod was another who had wounded an Indian, breaking his lower arm and causing him to drop his gun, but the warrior had kept on running. Sherrod leaped into pursuit but had to chase the wounded man for the better part of a mile before he finally overtook him and ended his life with a tomahawk blow. He scalped him, took his belt knife, powderhorn and shot pouch and went back to the others.
Tom Wells had seen one of the warriors leap down the bank of the river and crouch there behind a bush in front of a log, fairly well hidden by the bank above him. As he ran up, the Indian poked his rifle barrel through the bush and fired at him, but the gun merely flashed. Wells had ducked back out of sight as the flash occurred, and by the time he regained his footing and came down the bank, the warrior was gone. Wells stepped up on the log and looked around for him, and McGuire, a little distance away, shouted at him.
“Tom, that damn Injen is crouched down under the log, below and behind you!”
Wells turned and leaned far over. Seeing the warrior scrunched far back under the log in an effort to hide, he calmly raised his gun and put a bullet through his head.
The Indian party seemed to have been made up of Delawares and Senecas. The two dead Indians near the fire, a Seneca and a Delaware, were scalped, and nine horses hobbled nearby were easily captured. The dead woman, another Delaware, was not scalped, but her beaded moccasins and buckskin pullover dress were taken, leaving her naked body exposed. Including that woman, a total of eight Indians had been killed in the attack.732
There was a substantial amount of goods in the camp, including a few iron kettles, various tomahawks and knives, a couple of good flintlock rifles and a musket, a quantity of flour and about three gallons of bear oil in deerskin pouches. All these items were gathered up, later to be auctioned, along with the horses, and all members of the Brady party would share equally in the proceeds.
Brady, inspecting the dead, had no difficulty recognizing the fallen squaw, though it was over 13 years since he had seen her. She was the Seneca woman named Hannah, who had befriended him and given him several bags of corn during the McIntosh expedition late in 1778. He shook his head and said angrily, “I said no women were to be killed. Who shot her?”
“Someone,” Caleb Wells spoke up, not looking at Wetzel, “probably mistook her for a warrior.”
“I guess we’ll
just have to settle for that,” Brady said. He shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry she was killed. She helped me once, long ago.”
William Wilson, the trader, had emerged from his post on the other side of the river as the firing broke out. He had been followed by a few other people, including one Indian. When a few shots from the attackers came across the river toward the Indian with him, the little group ducked back into the blockhouse.733 Now they had come out again, and Wilson crossed the river rapidly in a small canoe, berating the whites with every dip of his paddle for firing on innocent Indians. He continued to do so as he came ashore, at the same time complaining to Brady about the men who had their rifles trained on him and seemed very willing to shoot.
Brady tried to explain that they had been trailing the Indians since not long after the massacre at the Riley cabin, that the tracks had led here and that they held these Indians responsible. Wilson wouldn’t accept that. He pointed at the plunder that had been piled together.
“Did you find any of the Riley items among their things?” When Brady shook his head, he went on, “That proves it. Those people had been tradin’ with me, not raiding the settlements. You’ve taken out your bloody vengeance on innocent people and, by God, I aim to see you pay for it!”
“You think you can do that, Wilson,” McGuire spoke up, “go right ahead. But let me tell you something, you no good Injen-lovin’ son of a bitch, you get your ass back across the river right now, or I’ll put a damn bullet betwixt your eyes, too!”